photo courtesy UTHSC
Members of the UTHSC team who volunteered at the Tiger Lane coronavirus testing center included (l-r): Dr. David Schwartz, Austin O’Connor, Chloe Handman, Hannah Allen, Lydia Makepeace, Andrew McBride, and Dr. Jon McCullers.
Who do you picture when you picture a hero? Perhaps a firefighter, rushing into a burning building, enters your mind. I experienced just this sort of heroism firsthand, last fall, when my husband’s and my Midtown home lit up from an electrical fire. The quickness of the Memphis Fire Department crew that evening stunned me, but what stays with me even more vividly is their compassion. One man, whose name I do not know, handed us a bottle of water so that our dogs could drink from our cupped hands. Those firefighters understood precisely what to do in order to keep us, and as much of our home as possible, safe.
Living in these pandemic days can feel a little like being in a fire that just won’t be snuffed. The best most of us can do is avoid it — we can deprive it of oxygen by preventing its insatiable desire to spread, but that’s about all. There is a certain quiet, collective heroism in everything we are not doing. There’s heroism in staying home, in keeping our distance, in wearing masks when we do need to draw near others.
But then there are those who are taking active steps each day to make the rest of us safer, and to sustain us during these difficult days.
We decided to talk to several locals whose heroism takes different, but undeniable forms, for which they are uniquely qualified. Without question, we could have filled every page of this magazine with other local heroes’ stories. — Anna Traverse Fogle, CEO & Editor-in-Chief
When done properly, working on the public-health frontlines of the coronavirus response can be “boring as hell.” And we’re doing it properly in Memphis.
That’s according to Dr. David Schwartz, a radiology oncologist and professor of radiation oncology and preventive medicine at the University of Tennessee Health Science Center. Schwartz is also an integral member of the team that planned, organized, built, and now staffs the coronavirus testing tent at the Mid-South Fairgrounds.
“Do you know what success in public health looks like?” he asks. “Pure, unadulterated boredom.”
But that boredom has been an essential part of the city’s response to the virus here. Healthcare workers at the tent can test about 200 people per day. After opening around the end of March, the UTHSC Fairgrounds site had tested 2,339 people as of mid-April, or about 15 percent of everyone tested in Shelby County by that time.
Schwartz says the testing tent was conceived in partnership between the UTHSC dean’s office, its medical school, and Memphis Mayor Jim Strickland’s office. Testing is available for anyone with coronavirus symptoms and an appointment. (To get an appointment, text “covid” to 901-203-5526.) The test is free.
The mayor’s office “came through with flying colors,” Schwartz says, providing resources for the site, including the tent itself. The university provided the scientific guidance on how to administer the testing properly and, of course, the school provided medical people-power.
“You know you’re doing well when you can show up and have a group of dedicated, mature, self-assembling superheroes — that’s what I call them,” Schwartz said. “They’re almost like Transformers, our medical students, along with firefighters, first responders, police officers, and city officials who are here on-site. Every day, it’s like watching magic happen.”
“We signed up to come to medical school and be doctors because we want to help people and make a difference. We can use our skill set and allow other people working in hospitals to do their jobs there, because we’re here, volunteering.”
One of those superheroes Schwartz describes is Lydia Makepeace. She’s a third-year medical student at UTHSC. She hopes next year to begin studying obstetrics and gynecology. This year, though, she — and students like her across the country — were pulled from clinical rotations to respond to the virus. For now, she spends her days in the Fairgrounds parking lot, battling on the front lines of the coronavirus epidemic.
Shifts begin there at around 8 a.m., she says, when medical students, firefighters, and Emergency Management Services (EMS) workers gather. Those directing traffic or checking in patients only need to wear surgical masks and a clear, plastic face shield, Makepeace says. But those administering the test get “gowned up.” They wear a surgical gown that can be cleaned between patients and a full-body medical suit that Makepeace says looks “kind of like a spacesuit.”
Masked up or fully gowned, each day the team creates its testing assembly line, as Schwartz calls it. The first patient rolls through the gate at 9 a.m. They drive into the testing center, turn off their car, and roll down a window. A team member then describes how the test will work.
“We have to put a really long swab in their nostril and explain that it has to go pretty far back,” Makepeace explains.
Each nostril is swabbed for five seconds to ensure the team gets a good sample, which can provide for better accuracy in test results. Then, the patient is sent on their way and will later get a phone call or email with their test results.
For Makepeace, the experience doesn’t fuel her anxiety. It’s an opportunity.
“We signed up to come to medical school and be doctors because we want to help people and make a difference,” she says. “We can use our skill set and allow other people working in hospitals to do their jobs there, because we’re here, volunteering.”
